The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) comprises a signaling format that is used to establish media sessions between user communication devices. In between the user devices, various network elements process SIP messages to broker and manage the communication sessions. The SIP messages contain data sets based on the Session Description Protocol (SDP). The SDP data sets indicate media session parameters, such as: protocol version number, originator and session identifier, network address, session name, session title, URIs, email addresses, contact names, phone numbers, connection information, bandwidth information, time zone adjustments, encryption keys, session attributes, time descriptions, session active times, repeat times, media descriptions, media names and transport addresses, media titles, and the like.
SIP servers are separated into processing layers. A line handler layer provides transport layer capability for SIP messages and their SDP data sets. The line handler layer exchanges the SIP/SDP messages with a SIP layer. The SIP layer provides SIP message parsing and SDP data storage. The SIP layer exchanges the SIP messages and their SDP data sets with a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) application layer. The VOIP application layer authorizes the binding of various call legs to form the media sessions.
The SDP data sets are exchanged back and forth between the SIP layers and the VOIP application layers of the SIP servers. This SDP data transfer consumes precious processing resources and slows down the servers. Unfortunately, the SIP servers handle SDP data sets in an inefficient and ineffective manner between the server layers.